Angels in the Snow
by superwho-scribblings
Summary: A snow day at the bunker. (I needed some fluff after the mid-season finale! This takes place in some wonderful world where Sacrifice happened, and Cas is human, but now everyone is happy and living together in the bunker. Just let it happen)


The first snow of the year settled over the open fields on the third week of November. Thick blankets of white covering any semblance of grass or even tall weeds, disappearing the world of Kansas in just one day. As usual, Dean's method for dealing with the cold was pretty simple.

"Dean, we can't just stay in the bunker until it all melts," Sam said in exasperation. Dean was sitting on the couch in front of the TV just like he had been since the inhabitants of the bunker had woken up that morning and found the sparkly wonderland of white just outside the door. He was currently looking unspeakably relaxed, lounging in sweat pants (which Sam didn't even know he owned) and a loose T-shirt, beer in hand.

"Sure we can," Dean said. "I don't hear Kevin or Cas arguing." He added. Sam rolled his eyes and stalked around the room for a minute. Dean's laziness had just been getting worse and worse now that Cas was back and they were all safe in 'Hotel Winchester'. The plush carpet of the TV room rubbed against Sam's socks as he walked. The feeling was somewhat disturbing and Sam searched his mind for the last time he had gone without shoes when he wasn't sleeping or in the hospital, but no memories jumped to the front of his mind. Who was he kidding? Dean was making him soft. He stalked back over to the couch.

"Kevin isn't complaining because he _never _leaves," Sam said. "He hasn't noticed anything is different yet! And no, Cas isn't arguing because he is always on your side." Dean shot him a horrifyingly smug smile.

"Only because I'm so damn good lookin'," Dean said.

"I was going to say it was because of the sex, but whatever," Sam huffed. Dean shrugged, still smiling, and took a sip of his beer.

"Come on, Sammy, take a break," Dean leaned over and patted the seat at the opposite end of the couch. Sam resisted the urge to let his head fall into his hands in exasperation.

"Dean, we haven't hunted anything in three weeks," Sam said. "We've just been 'relaxing' and I can't stay in this bunker anymore!" He punctuated his point by marching forcefully out of the room to the front door. He slammed his over-large feet into the boots next to the door and yanked his coat off of the stair rail, whipping it on with an angry pull.

He pulled the door open to be met with an absolute face-full of snow.

The freezing whiteness crashed into his face and Sam staggered back from the sheer _cold _of it all over his nose, his skin, his shoes, and just about everywhere else. It took him a full five minutes to brush all the fluffiness off of himself and check to see that, yes, it had at least _stopped _snowing now.

Sam heaved the door closed again with a powerful push. He peeled off his coat and laid it back over the rail and yanked off his boots before tossing them against the wall. He walked back down the hallway and stopped just short of the doorway to clench his hands and send a hateful glance skyward.

Finally, he deemed himself ready, and entered the TV room. Dean wasn't alone anymore, so Sam collapsed into the plush La-Z-Boy chair. Dean's arm draped over Cas's shoulders, pulling him in against Dean's body. They were watching some made-for-TV action movie that was – without a doubt – going to be terrible.

"Beer?" Dean inquired smugly. Sam glared at him. "Hey, angry looks aren't going to melt the snow, sunshine. Have a beer." Cas gave Sam an almost apologetic smile without turning his body away from Dean and Sam grabbed the beer from Dean's hand with a quick movement.

"What the hell are we—" Sam began.

"Could we possibly see the snow?" Cas interrupted. Both Winchesters turned to look at him with equal looks of surprise.

"Um, why?" Dean asked. Cas looked down almost bashfully, looking like he regretted asking in the first place. He took a measured breathe.

"Well," he said, "it's just, I haven't ever really experienced snow before." The end of his sentence was thoughtfully quiet and Sam nearly had to strain to make out what Cas was saying.

"You've never been in the snow before?" Dean asked incredulously. "What happened to you being this 'ancient being'?"

"I am old, but I have never been stationed on earth before," Cas said, still looking down. "I have always wanted to feel snow."

"Why didn't you say earlier?" Sam asked. Cas looked up at him and then his eyes flickered over to Dean.

"We were staying inside," he said the words carefully and Sam could have punched Dean.

"No," he sighed," Dean was being a lazy ass."

"Hey, I'm _relaxing,_" Dean said. "And Cas, you should have said something. Never seeing snow, well, that's just not right." Cas and Sam both looked at Dean and he grinned. Sam gave him a level glare.

"You couldn't have brought this up ten minutes ago?" he asked. He sighed and stood up, stretching his long arms high above his head. For an underground bunker, this place sure had tall ceilings. "Kevin!" he yelled in the direction of the prophet's room. Dean pulled himself up off the couch and reached an arm out to help Cas up too. Kevin marched into the room with a sullen glare.

"What?" he asked.

"Put your coat on, Kev," Dean said. "Apparently our snow day is being moved outside."

* * *

Kevin looked like a disgruntled 9-year-old standing just a couple of steps away from the closed bunker door in a coat, with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. Castiel had waded out into the thick snow with a delighted expression on his face. He was wearing borrowed clothes, as had become normal. Dean's coat fit just a bit oversized on his shoulder, and the shoes might have been slightly big, but Cas didn't seem to care.

"Ok, I've been outside," Kevin said, shoving his hands further into his pockets. "Can I go in now?"

"Kev, just enjoy it for a minute, K?" Sam shook his head at Kevin's scowl. The kid really was turning into Dean.

"This is an interesting texture," Cas was busy saying. He dunked one finger into a snowbank and made a circle in the clean face of white. "It is frozen and yet it is soft. I did not know it would be soft."

"It isn't soft when you do this," Dean called from a few feet away. Before Sam could call out any sort of warning to Castiel, the former angel was pelted by a large, round snowball, slamming squarely into his back. Cas staggered slightly forward and turned to face Dean, confusion written into his features. Sam glanced at Dean out of the corner of his eye and silently knelt down, rolling up some of the snow in his hands and crushing it together sharply into a ball. Dean was still laughing at Cas.

"Cas, your face," he laughed. "Oh, my god, that was so worth it!" Cas reached a hand back and touched the place on his back where the ball had hit.

"Hey, Dean," Sam yelled, standing to his full height. He threw right as Dean turned to look at him and the snowball went directly into the oldest Winchester's bare throat. Dean's eyes bulged in shock and he choked out a rough cough, his hand going to his wet throat.

"What the fuck, Sammy?" he got out, trying to use his sleeve to dry off his bare skin.

"Maybe pick on someone who actually knows what they are _doing _in a snowball fight," Sam said smugly. Dean gave him one of his own bitchy faces mixed with a grimace and Sam laughed loudly at him.

"Is it something like this?" Cas asked. A blur of white streaked across Sam's vision and slammed into Dean's shoulder. Both brothers turned to look at Cas. Dean in shock, Sam in surprised amusement. Cas shrugged and wiped his wet hands on his pants. "The mechanics seemed simple enough," he added. If Sam hadn't known Cas as well as he did, he might have missed the minuscule sly grin that passed across his face, but Sam recognized it.

"Oh, it is _on,_" Dean muttered. He knelt down and started balling up snow and Sam grinned. Five minutes later, everyone was soaking wet. At some point, after a few well-aimed shots on Dean and Sam's part, even Kevin got in on the fight. That rare smile that no one but Dean could ever get of him graced Cas's red face and he laughed with his booming laugh that was almost never heard when Kevin got a shot directly into Dean's shocked face.

When they finally stopped pelting each other, Dean fell back into the snow, laughing. He moved his arms and legs back and forth, creating marks in the snow. Cas stood over him, hair dripping with melting snow.

"What are you doing?" Cas asked, tilting his head quizzically. Dean looked at him appraisingly and then glanced at the space next to himself.

"Get down here and try it," he said. Sam had time to think maybe this wasn't the best idea, but was tackled by a surprisingly agile Kevin into a snowbank before he could say anything. By the time he had wrestled Kevin off (and shoved some snow down the back of the kids' coat for good measure) Dean had stood up and was holding out a hand to Cas on the ground.

"Careful not to move any of the snow," Dean said. Sam swallowed as Castiel situated his weight and grabbed Dean's hand, being pulled up quickly.

"Dean, are you sure about this?" Sam asked. Dean rolled his eyes and didn't even bother responding. Sam glanced over to see Kevin staring at the pair with level concern. Cas looked down at the two matching shapes in the snow.

"I don't understand," Cas said, turning to look at Dean.

"They're snow angels," Dean said. Kevin and Sam both stared at Castiel for a response but his face had gone oddly blank.

"Snow angels?" he asked.

"Yeah, it's what you do in the snow," Dean said. He at least had the decency to look concerned by now. "You make snow angels. See, look, you still have wings." He pointed down into the snow. Sam dropped his head into one hand.

For a long couple of seconds, Cas just stared at the ground. Kevin kicked a bit of snow uncomfortably and Dean finally started to backtrack.

"OK, Cas, I'm sorry," Dean said. "I thought you would appreciate it. God, I'm such an insensitive dick." He put a hand on Cas's shoulder and tried to turn the former angel to look at him.

"No," Cas said. Three sets of eyes remained carefully trained on him. "Thank you. I like it, Dean." Dean let out a sigh of relief. Cas looked for another minute at the two angels before bending down and carefully running a finger around the edge of his own 'wings'. As he knelt, a rough shiver wracked his whole body.

"Hey, you getting too cold?" Dean asked. He put a hand back on Cas's shoulder and turned him around. Cas's face was red with cold, his nose especially rosy.

"Yes, I appear to be," Cas said. He sounded mildly disgruntled and Sam chuckled.

"Come on," Sam said. "I'll make some hot chocolate inside."

"Oh, I don't know," Dean said, a mischievous tone making its way across his words. "I can think of other ways to warm up." With that, he jumped on Cas and wrestled him into the snow, pressing a somewhat frantic kiss against Cas's lips. Cas let out a muffled noise of shock and then wrapped his arms around Dean and forced him to roll over onto his back. Kevin made a noise of disgust.

"Alright, well, not that I don't love watching Mom and Dad make out," Kevin said, "but I'm going to head in anyway." He quickly turned and walked back inside the bunker. Sam turned back to the pair still wrestling around between deep kissing on the ground and cleared his throat.

"Uh, guys?" he asked. "I think you traumatized Kevin… and I'm not loving this either so if you wouldn't mind?" Dean and Cas didn't even appear to have heard him and he sighed. Sam shook his head. All this work to get them outside and there was no getting them back in. He waved a hand of dismissal towards the pair and walked back inside, just missing the moment when Dean and Cas rolled across their freshly-made snow angels.

With Sam gone, Dean broke apart the kiss and smiled at Cas's red face. "Just wait until I show you how to sled," he said. Cas shook his head at Dean with a smile and then leaned in again, pressing more kisses along his lips and jaw.

"I would like that," he said, and they were kissing again, warmth pulsing between their bodies as they destroyed the shapes of the angels that had been made in the snow.


End file.
